Page 2118 - Week 10 - Thursday, 26 October 1989
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MRS GRASSBY: That is all right, Mr Collaery. I can handle you; don't worry. The Liberal Party talks about Labor looking after its mates. Let me say, Mr Speaker, that Liberal Party members have been looking after their mates for years. They talk about unions. What about lawyers and doctors? They call their organisations "associations", of course, but they are unions. Try getting your rights with the law association! What a joke! It is the same thing all over again. There are no rights. It is run by the law association, so you have no rights. It is the same with the AMA. You have no rights there. It is a union.
Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; I do not believe there is any relevance to the subject at all in the Minister engaging in gratuitous attacks on honourable professions in this city in her usual irrelevant fashion. I would ask her to withdraw those comments as they are a reflection on all lawyers and all doctors in this city.
Mr Collaery: Hear, hear!
MRS GRASSBY: Well, of course we would hear that from two lawyers on the other side of the house, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: That objection has been overruled, Mr Humphries, but please stay relevant, Mrs Grassby.
MRS GRASSBY: I, like all the members on this side of the house, am a member of a union and have always been a member of a union.
Mr Stevenson: On this side of the house?
MRS GRASSBY: I am talking about the Government. I do not refer to you as being on this side of the house, I am sorry, sir. All members of the Government have been members of their unions all their working lives. I myself have been a member of a union all my working life, whether I owned a business or not. I would not employ people who did not belong to a union because I think that, if they cannot be true to their mates, they certainly would not be true to their boss.
Mr Humphries: Your father said that.
MRS GRASSBY: Exactly. He did. So I firmly believe in it and I firmly believe in this Occupational Health and Safety Bill. The fact that the committee did not agree on absolutely everything does not mean to say it is right. When you have the TLC representing 50,000 workers in this city I am more inclined to see their side than that of the other side of the house.
Question put:
That the amendment be agreed to.
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